My 1st Hog
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About 4 weeks ago I discovered ” I finally have a Hog”. I can not tell you how excited I am. I was looking at my camera, as I feed a very small 2yr old fox. There it was, eating the chicken from the same bowls of food. I would like to say, the small fox was very ill with mange as a cub, which I treated and have fed from then on 2yrs ago, and comes to me every night for his food. He is a very frightened individual and pays no attention to the hog, in fact he moves away to let it eat. So now, I have gone into full hog mode. I have waited 10yrs for a hog to come to my garden, I can not say how happy I am. Moved into my house 11yrs ago and have made my garden as wildlife friendly as possible. I have purchased a hog house, and am about to purchase 3 more, along with a lovely elderly carpenter, who is going to make me 3 more larger ones, with good feeding stations in.
I’m not too sure how much food to put out for him/her.
So I have the main dish inside the house which I put more in, and then have 4 other dishes with moist hog nibbles, all varieties and a bit of tin food, and place around the garden amongst his/her rummaging. In his house (which I have another camera pointing at it) I cook him fresh chicken, the occasional tiny bit of scrambled egg, live meal worms from the pet shop and tin food. He eats everything and visits the house around 3/4 times a night. All gets eaten a part from a few “Brambles Crunchy” bits always gets left behind. I have 8 floor water stations around the garden too, all of which are cleaned each day and replenished for all the birds and Hog. I’ve been keeping all water and trying to water plants and areas to entice a few worms and insects to come up from the terribly dry ground. I am lucky that I have a very large Koi pond, that I have to clean out the filter (so all water goes under the plants, helping wildlife to have a bit of soft soil to rummage in) I also have 2 wildlife ponds with frogs and newts in, (all hog protected with nets and exit routes). Its devastating to see, how many frogs have died during this heatwave. I have made so many damp covered areas, but the drought is taking hold of the trees and plants now, all starting to die back.
The poor birds are unable to dig up worms where the ground is so hard, everything has retreated deep in the ground. I have several areas all around the garden of old tree logs, I have hundreds of Stag beetle Larve, but the Magpies have been breaking the wood down to get at them. I have a purposely grown tree for a bird paradise feeding area along with 3 other areas with feeders on too.
It is amazing what wildlife you pick up on cameras. I have had a very large owl visit, along with bats swooping over the pond and the camera lights to get flying insects.
The only visitor I don’t have is the badger, but I am in a built up area.
Its been really good reading this forum, with so many people giving so much advice about Hogs. So I think I’m on the right path.
Thank you everyone.Oh that’s so sad. You do get quite attached to them don’t you.
I’m not sure if I have more than one visiting. How much do they eat? Mine came last night and when he left, I topped up the dish again and a hog came back a few times and ate all that too, along with another dish with a small amount in. Either that or I’m going to end up with a very, very large hog by the end of the summer.
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